catnip

1. 1.

   hairy aromatic perennial herb having whorls of small white purple-spotted flowers in a terminal spike; used in the past as a domestic remedy; strongly attractive to cats

   SynonymscatmintNepeta cataria

   Broaderherb

   Part ofNepeta

Other forms of catnip

plural

catnips·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about catnip

What does catnip mean?

catnip means "hairy aromatic perennial herb having whorls of small white purple-spotted flowers in a terminal spike; used in the past as a domestic remedy; strongly attractive to cats".

How many syllables are in catnip?

catnip has 2 syllables: cat-nip. The stress falls on "cat". In IPA it is /ˈkætnɪp/.

What is another word for catnip?

Close synonyms include catmint, Nepeta cataria. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is catnip a common word?

catnip is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.